Glencoe massacre: 300th anniversary (and a short postscript)

Everything I know, or think I know, about Glencoe (apart from driving through it) I know from John Prebble’s work. The same is true of The Clearances and of Culloden. Shortbread-tin-and-tartan history likes to paint the perfidious English as the villains of the piece. It chooses to ignore the major part played by the Lowland Scots. It chooses to ignore the fact that McIan, the clan chief of the Glencoe Macdonalds was essentially a bandit and cattle thief whose depredations had driven Campbell of Glen Lyon to such straits of penury that he had to enlist in the army in order to make a living. So it was maybe no surprise that Caampbell was quite happy to lead the raid on the MacDonalds of Glencoe. ‘Massacre’ conjures up notions of annihilation. Thirty-seven** of the Clan MacDonald were killed. Decimation would be a more accurate word. But it was a cowardly…